A case for 5x vertical crop in 1080p mode.

[SegaSnatcher]

[EDIT: As of 2/10/21 this feature has been officially implemented in NES, SNES, Genesis, Mega CD, SMS, Neo-Geo and TG-16 cores]

There has been some discussion about implementing this feature with some expressing great interest while others not understanding the reason/need for it.

Let me try to make a case for it, especially for cores like NES, SNES and Genesis.

5x crop with 240p sources gives you the ability to fill your screen while allowing for perfect scanlines and without the need for any vertical interpolation, and now that we have custom aspect ratios we can finally do a 6x horizonal aspect ratio that would totally remove the need for interpolation at all while providing a pretty close to 4:3 aspect ratio. Many people love perfectly sharp pixels. I know there is a 1440p mode, but 1440p is not super compatible with a lot of displays and at the end of the day its not a true alternative to the specific 5x crop look in 1080p that many people have enjoyed.

Grabulosaure has already implemented 5x crop test builds months ago and many people really enjoyed these builds. There is no reason to limit to 4x vertical when the MiSTer has the capability to do 5x, especially with Grabulosaure already proving it can work extremely well.

I understand the notion of "feature creep", but I believe this mode has proven itself already on other devices like emulators and other FPGA systems. Again, its the perfect compromise that will be highly compatible with most if not all 1080p and 4K screens.

If anyone else is interested in this mode, please share your feelings and if I missed any other benefits please post.

Thanks

[bootsector]

+1 on this feature!

It's the only missing thing now in order to make MiSTer's HDMI scaler (ASCAL) a "killer" one, IMO!

[ash2fpga]

I have an possible use case for custom cropping. The vertical scroller CPS1 games appear to be outputting a vertical resolution (per the mister video info OSD box) of 393x224 instead of the expected 384x224. If I could crop off those extra pixels, I could possibly get 2x integer scaling at 1366x768 screen resolution.

(My reason for wanting to try this is if I can feed my TV a resolution it can handle, it seems to do a decent enough job of taking it the "rest of the way" to 1080p. Especially in the case of scanlines, it seems to keep them "even" better compared to mister using a non-integer scale.)

I have attached an illustration of how those 2x resolutions might look.

Red box: Screen resolution
Blue box: Expected resolution (what I would crop to)
Green box: Actual resolution (I think)

Notes:
Blue and green boxes are assuming the core is applying the 4:3 aspect ratio the way I think it is.
I offset the blue and green boxes a bit to make them easier to see.

example.png (14.99 KiB) Viewed 13225 times

[bootsector]

I've just simulated a centralized vertical 1200p crop to 1080p with a screenshot captured from an emulator on the PC using GIMP and I kinda like the result:

XDtdydb.png (73.06 KiB) Viewed 10358 times

It seems to match where my old TV used to crop when playing with my original Sega Mega Drive back then in the 90's.

I really hope this become a reality in the near future.

[SegaSnatcher]

I 100% agree with you Boot, 5x cropping in 1080p would make MiSTer's scaler a complete package.

[flynnsbit]

Do you all have a github item entered that can be referenced with specifications and how you think it would be accomplished? That is always a good start.

[SegaSnatcher]

Do you all have a github item entered that can be referenced with specifications and how you think it would be accomplished? That is always a good start.

Grabalosaure has the source code. A lot of the work has been done already for SNES and Genesis, just needs some fine tuning and most importantly for Sorge to approve.

For Genesis.

http://temlib.org/pub/mister/Genesis_MiSTer.tgz

[SegaSnatcher]

If possible, I would really appreciate if Sorge explained why this hasn't been considered yet since Grabulosaure has shown that this is possible on the DE-10 Nano via test builds. Is it because the amount of work required to make sure each core works well with this? Perhaps this feature could just be limited to couple cores to keep the work minimal? I think most would love this for NES, SNES, Genesis/MCD and Turbografx/Turbo CD cores.

It would be extremely disappointing to think that this feature will never be a consideration, especially considering how popular it is on other FPGA devices and emulators. Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.

[ItalianGrandma]

+1 for interest!

[aberu]

If possible, I would really appreciate if Sorge explained why this hasn't been considered yet since Grabulosaure has shown that this is possible on the DE-10 Nano via test builds. Is it because the amount of work required to make sure each core works well with this? Perhaps this feature could just be limited to couple cores to keep the work minimal? I think most would love this for NES, SNES, Genesis/MCD and Turbografx/Turbo CD cores.

It would be extremely disappointing to think that this feature will never be a consideration, especially considering how popular it is on other FPGA devices and emulators. Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.

Has Grabulosaure submitted a PR on github? I don't get the need for sorgelig to explain and answer every single request every single person could possibly have, especially if it hasn't been brought to his attention or even been shown how it can be done or even submitted as a PR...

Additionally who is Grabulosaure? I googled the name and there was only one search result, this thread. Is there a typo?

EDIT: It was a typo, you are referring to Grabulosaur, not Grabulosaure. Got it.

EDIT2: Weird, Grabulosaure is the name on atari-forum though... whatever, google being weird lol.

[SegaSnatcher]

If possible, I would really appreciate if Sorge explained why this hasn't been considered yet since Grabulosaure has shown that this is possible on the DE-10 Nano via test builds. Is it because the amount of work required to make sure each core works well with this? Perhaps this feature could just be limited to couple cores to keep the work minimal? I think most would love this for NES, SNES, Genesis/MCD and Turbografx/Turbo CD cores.

It would be extremely disappointing to think that this feature will never be a consideration, especially considering how popular it is on other FPGA devices and emulators. Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.

Has Grabulosaure submitted a PR on github? I don't get the need for sorgelig to explain and answer every single request every single person could possibly have, especially if it hasn't been brought to his attention or even been shown how it can be done or even submitted as a PR...

Additionally who is Grabulosaure? I googled the name and there was only one search result, this thread. Is there a typo?

EDIT: It was a typo, you are referring to Grabulosaur, not Grabulosaure. Got it.

EDIT2: Weird, Grabulosaure is the name on atari-forum though... whatever, google being weird lol.

Its Grabulosaure on Discord. Anyways he created the ASCAL scaler used in MiSTer and I asked him about 5x cropped scaling a couple months back and he created some test builds that were very promising. 5x cropped 1080p scaling was presented to Sorg in the past but he couldn't understand why people wanted 5x crop in 1080p and just said people should just use 1440p mode instead, which in my honest opinion is not a proper alternative, since 5x crop has a specific look people like, plus its not like native 1440p is compatible with a lot of HDTVs anyways.

The 5x crop feature never made it past early test builds and I would assume Sorg finding it pointless might be a reason why it hasn't further been developed at this point. I hope this changes in the future.

[dshadoff]

Well, just throwing this out there: 1080 / 5 = 216 lines of display area.

This may be OK for Nintendo consoles (because of their enforced policies on game builds), but other cores - including PC Engine/Turbografx - often use significantly more lines of actual display than this. Quite often, the score and other important information is at the extreme top or extreme bottom, which would be cut off. And I know that this would confuse some people, and dealing with "core does not display score" complaints caused by this feature/explaining why this is the case, is not the best use of the time of the developers of the various cores.

Of course - and this is Sorgelig's point - the next request would be to cut off only certain lines and not others, and then to make it super-configurable, and then it becomes a monstrosity of configuration nightmare.

It's just not worth the trouble because of the support nightmares.

[aberu]

Its Grabulosaure on Discord. Anyways he created the ASCAL scaler used in MiSTer and I asked him about 5x cropped scaling a couple months back and he created some test builds that were very promising. 5x cropped 1080p scaling was presented to Sorg in the past but he couldn't understand why people wanted 5x crop in 1080p and just said people should just use 1440p mode instead, which in my honest opinion is not a proper alternative, since 5x crop has a specific look people like, plus its not like native 1440p is compatible with a lot of HDTVs anyways.

The 5x crop feature never made it past early test builds and I would assume Sorg finding it pointless might be a reason why it hasn't further been developed at this point. I hope this changes in the future.

Oh yeah, I didn't know the name of the person that originally came up with ASCAL, just knew a tiny bit about ASCAL's role hehe. Thanks!

[iEqualShane]

5X cropped is my favorite way to play my MegaSg. Analogue's UI for dealing with video settings isn't perfect but it's probably a good starting point for what MiSTer should attempt to achieve.

[cacophony]

I like playing NES with cropped 6x by 5x, so another +1 from me. It's super sharp, the image is large, and there's no weird scrolling or shimmering issues. Plus it pretty closely matches what was cut off in overscan on a CRT.

[SegaSnatcher]

Well, just throwing this out there: 1080 / 5 = 216 lines of display area.

This may be OK for Nintendo consoles (because of their enforced policies on game builds), but other cores - including PC Engine/Turbografx - often use significantly more lines of actual display than this. Quite often, the score and other important information is at the extreme top or extreme bottom, which would be cut off. And I know that this would confuse some people, and dealing with "core does not display score" complaints caused by this feature/explaining why this is the case, is not the best use of the time of the developers of the various cores.

Of course - and this is Sorgelig's point - the next request would be to cut off only certain lines and not others, and then to make it super-configurable, and then it becomes a monstrosity of configuration nightmare.

It's just not worth the trouble because of the support nightmares.

Simple solution, they can just make it a custom ini setting. People who want this feature know fully well its limitations. 5x crop has been enjoyed for years on emulators, Analogue consoles and even the OSSC with zero issues, so to say it would be an issue on MiSTer I don't think holds much weight, especially when we already have test builds that show it working very well on Genesis and SNES cores. And to clarify, I'm not asking for a 5x crop mode on every core, just the more popular 240p console cores.

And yes, ideally MiSTer should have a fully configurable scaler to the user, but it doesn't so I'm just trying to find an alternative way to get 5x crop setting. Point is, if Grabulosaure is nice enough to do the work, which he has to some extent already, I would hope Sorg would accept any potential 5x crop pull request in the future. The MiSTer's hardware is fully capable of this feature, no reason to artificially limit its full performance potential.

[SegaSnatcher]

Not to get anyone's hopes up, but another dev which I won't name until they decide to further put work into it has figured out a formula for 5x crop mode and they used NES core for testing. The ASCAL scaler just seemed to automatically run in 5x crop mode when the dev told it to restrict to 216 scanlines of information.

Again, this is not a guarantee said feature will be implemented anytime soon, but its a step in the right direction.

Here's the picture they shared, and as you can expect I was very excited.

5x_216SL.png (617.37 KiB) Viewed 12064 times

[dshadoff]

...and I believe that's a more proper way to get it implemented. No changes to the framework, and the core itself would have some sort of setting where the user could not be unaware that it was set to crop.

...And cores where it doesn't make sense would simply not support it.

[jlancaster86]

Well, just throwing this out there: 1080 / 5 = 216 lines of display area.

This may be OK for Nintendo consoles (because of their enforced policies on game builds), but other cores - including PC Engine/Turbografx - often use significantly more lines of actual display than this. Quite often, the score and other important information is at the extreme top or extreme bottom, which would be cut off. And I know that this would confuse some people, and dealing with "core does not display score" complaints caused by this feature/explaining why this is the case, is not the best use of the time of the developers of the various cores.

Of course - and this is Sorgelig's point - the next request would be to cut off only certain lines and not others, and then to make it super-configurable, and then it becomes a monstrosity of configuration nightmare.

It's just not worth the trouble because of the support nightmares.

Yeah, I'm in the camp that a 5× with vertical crop mode would be more trouble than it's worth, at least at this stage. The MiSTer can always be connected to an OSSC in the meantime.

[SegaSnatcher]

...and I believe that's a more proper way to get it implemented. No changes to the framework, and the core itself would have some sort of setting where the user could not be unaware that it was set to crop.

...And cores where it doesn't make sense would simply not support it.

Hmm, I'm confused, I would think the user should know what setting allows for 5x cropping, otherwise how would they know what setting to enable? So, I don't quite understand your comment about the user should not be aware when the image is cropped, since cropping is the intended purpose. The people who don't like the look of 5x cropped scaling should just not use it. Why should this feature be treated different at the user end than any other feature? Its not that hard to explain new features, what they do and their limitations to users.

I mean you can literally list the feature as such on Github.

5x Vertical Trimming: Disable/Enable

"With this setting enabled you can achieve a 5x vertical integer scale that will fill the full height of your TV, but some useful information (Health Bar, Item Box, Score) might be slightly cropped out. Turn off feature if you feel too much useful information is cropped."

See, not that difficult.

Yeah, I'm in the camp that a 5× with vertical crop mode would be more trouble than it's worth, at least at this stage. The MiSTer can always be connected to an OSSC in the meantime.

People should not have to spend another $140+ just to get a 5x scale, when the MiSTer itself is more than capable enough to do this. Like I said before, the dev I mentioned earlier said it was super simple to get the scaler to do 5x scale, it just worked.

[Insert Disk Two]

Cropping would be great for c64 core as on 1080p it only does x3 with a lot of black margin in top and bottom. With some cropping at x4 picture will fill up very nicely! Bring it on.

[LamerDeluxe]

I'd also like a cropping option for the VIC-20 core, as its borders are very large.

I think there should simply be cropping options (in pixels, horizontally and vertically) in the config.ini, combined with an option to have integer scaling vertically, horizontally or in both directions (both directions sacrificing correct aspect-ratio, while increasing sharpness and eliminating scroll shimmering). Like I mentioned elsewhere, this would allow for clean vertical scan-lines as well.

[skooter]

This is a popular option in emulators and other FPGA consoles. I think it is worth considering its inclusion, many people would enjoy it.

[Insert Disk Two]

If vscale_border actually CUT off the lines left out then we would have complete control on how many lines we want to remove from display and adjust pixel perfect image size for the best possible view while removing a few extra lines in integer scaling more.

Case in point:

Commodore 64 is 284p. 284p X 4 is 1136 which means it's integer scaling x3 because of just 14 pixels (7 top and 7 bottom) to fit in a 1080p frame.

So if we could add a 7 pixel inside image border which are actually CUT off, the picture would fit exactly full screen in 1080p.

[dshadoff]

...and I believe that's a more proper way to get it implemented. No changes to the framework, and the core itself would have some sort of setting where the user could not be unaware that it was set to crop.

...And cores where it doesn't make sense would simply not support it.

Hmm, I'm confused, I would think the user should know what setting allows for 5x cropping, otherwise how would they know what setting to enable? So, I don't quite understand your comment about the user should not be aware when the image is cropped, since cropping is the intended purpose. The people who don't like the look of 5x cropped scaling should just not use it. Why should this feature be treated different at the user end than any other feature? Its not that hard to explain new features, what they do and their limitations to users.

If this were set as a scaler option, it would be system-wide. Likewise, if it were a hidden option as somebody had mentioned above, it would be "set and forget".

If the user enables such an option because they like the look of it on the NES core, they will assume that all is well, and could frankly forget that they set it up... or more specifically, forget that it does cropping (or assume that it never did cropping).

One day, same user - forgetting that this global setting was enabled - uses the TurboGrafx core, and plays a game where the outer portion of the screen area is used for critical information, and doesn't see it. Can't find a score, etc. They report a bug, when then wastes a lot of time. Being a hidden option, the user may have even forgotten that they ever set it. This happens all the time.

If it's a core-based OSD option, at least they can transcribe their settings in the bug report, and that cores for which it doesn't make sense don't even provide the option to crop.

With most TVs in the past several years being 4K (vertical resolution of 2160), most will automatically convert a 720p signal to 4K with an internal line-triple upscale... not sure what this commotion is all about, and why people feel the need to trim 10% of the screen to make it fit in an older TV.

[SegaSnatcher]

If this were set as a scaler option, it would be system-wide. Likewise, if it were a hidden option as somebody had mentioned above, it would be "set and forget".

If the user enables such an option because they like the look of it on the NES core, they will assume that all is well, and could frankly forget that they set it up... or more specifically, forget that it does cropping (or assume that it never did cropping).

One day, same user - forgetting that this global setting was enabled - uses the TurboGrafx core, and plays a game where the outer portion of the screen area is used for critical information, and doesn't see it. Can't find a score, etc. They report a bug, when then wastes a lot of time. Being a hidden option, the user may have even forgotten that they ever set it. This happens all the time.

If it's a core-based OSD option, at least they can transcribe their settings in the bug report, and that cores for which it doesn't make sense don't even provide the option to crop.

With most TVs in the past several years being 4K (vertical resolution of 2160), most will automatically convert a 720p signal to 4K with an internal line-triple upscale... not sure what this commotion is all about, and why people feel the need to trim 10% of the screen to make it fit in an older TV.

Yeah, not saying this should be a global setting, but something you would either have within the core itself, or a custom per core setting you do in the ini settings, like custom aspect ratios.

Please remember that while Genesis and SNES output 240p signals, really only 224 lines have useful information, which means even if you output 720p on a new TV you will still see black bars at the top and bottom. While NES will show information outside 224 lines, a lot of it is garbage information that a CRT would have cropped out anyways. Also, 4K TVs tend to scale 1080p a bit better than 720p, since most HDTVs aren't doing nearest neighbor scaling anyways.

This has nothing to do with the age of the HDTV people are using, we just want to be able to fully fill the vertical height of our screens using an integer scale, while also being able to turn off interpolation completely by implementing a custom 6x horizontal aspect ratio. Plus, scanlines would work too.

Lastly, its not hard to educate people on new features if you are willing to do so. Most MiSTer users are not casuals, but enthusiasts. 5x cropped scale is a standard feature on both Emulators and Analogue consoles, and I have yet to hear of users complaining about that. So, this is why I don't see why we should have a double standard for MiSTer, when the above mentioned devices seem to be doing just fine with a 5x crop setting available to general users.

[ash2fpga]

Yeah, I'm in the camp that a 5× with vertical crop mode would be more trouble than it's worth, at least at this stage. The MiSTer can always be connected to an OSSC in the meantime.

I have had my mister connected to my ossc, and had much worse issues with having to fiddle with the ossc sampling options for mister than with original hardware (consoles). Having cropping options over the native hdmi mister output would be much better, IMO.

[Insert Disk Two]

Most TVs don't even like OSSC. Let's not complicated things unnecessarily.

[LamerDeluxe]

You can set all config.ini options per core, which I do for most arcade cores. So I don't think adding these options to the already existing config.ini options would be a problem at all, unless the user has no idea what he is doing.

[dshadoff]

About 1 out of every 3 issues logged on TGFX is due to users overriding core defaults, and not realizing that they have set the core to something different than how the original machine behaves. (CD fast / 64 sprites / etc.)

But as I say, I am stating this as somebody who maintains cores... stating possible reasons why FPGA programmers might choose to prioritize their efforts working on other things than this - and ways in which it might have a less-burdensome implementation. I'm pretty sure the FPGA programmers understand where I'm coming from.